THE east coast dockers union, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), and the employers' United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), plan to start talks well before the current contract lapses.
"The goal of both parties is a long-term agreement that provides stability for the industry and for labour," said USMX chief executive David Adam, reported Newark's Journal of Commerce.
USMX and the ILA want to begin preliminary discussions "sooner rather than later, probably in the next several weeks," said Mr Adam on the sidelines of JoC's TPM shipping conference in Long Beach.
ILA spokesman James McNamara confirmed that the union's president Harold Daggett, was "agreeable to engaging in conversations" about an early deal on a contract to follow the current six-year agreement, which expires September 30, 2018.
The ILA and USMX ratified their current six-year master contract in April 2013, after a year of bargaining that included repeated strike threats before a deal finally was worked out with help from a federal mediator.
PORTS
10 March 2015 - 20:31
US east coast ILA, dock bosses agree to start labour talks early
THE east coast dockers union, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), and the employers' United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), plan to start talks well before the current contract lapses.
PORTS
10 March 2015 - 20:31
US east coast ILA, dock bosses agree to start labour talks early
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